And so Mike Huckabee, who two weeks ago jettisoned his status as Republican conservative who could be supported by many independent voters when he dove into being a birther (and later tried to partially walk the comments back) has now come full circle: he is now just one more Republican pandering to the party’s right wing. Who ever thought you’d see the day when Mike Huckabee would say that if he was President he might re-instate “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?”

Former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he would support re-imposing the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military if elected president.

“I would — because that’s really what the military wants,” Huckabee told OneNewsNow. “There’s been some talk that the military is fine with having same-sex orientation people. But if you really surveyed the combat troops, that is not at all the case.”

“I don’t think that these are decisions that politicians should make,” the potential Republican 2012 presidential candidate added. “These are decisions that soldiers should make. And when the soldiers in the foxholes make the decisions, they choose something different — and we should listen to them.”

A 267-page Department of Defense report [PDF] published in November 2010 concluded that “the risk of repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to overall military effectiveness is low” but added that the implementation of the repeal could “bring about some limited and isolated disruption to unit cohesion and retention.”

The report found that 70 percent of troops surveyed said having a gay or lesbian member in their unit would have positive, mixed or no effect on the unit’s ability to “work together to get the job done.”

The report also found that 69% of troops surveyed believed they had worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual and 92% of those who believed they worked in a unit with someone who was homosexual rated the ability of unit to work together as very good, good or neither good nor poor.

Clearly, the GOP is now in a quandary. Just as Barack Obama risks falling into an international quagmire in Libya, the GOP could find itself knee-deep in one politically in 2012.

It is evident that many Americans are disappointed in either some of Barack Obama’s policies (going too far, going not far enough) or his style (not quite the JFK or FDR redux that they hoped) or how the economy has performed on his watch. Yet, it will most assuredly spawn a host of anti-GOP candidate votes if its candidates are running around America asking to re-instate “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in effect trying to rip the bandage off one of America’s raw political wounds to revive the wedge issue of gays in the military.

It’s likely that there’s little left that many independents will say to Huckabee except: “Enjoy your tea, dude, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever enjoy it sitting in the oval office. And you may gain some readers of your books but you’ll lose some others. But you’ll still make a lot of money and get good ratings..”